


wherever i turn i see your smile

by robin_hoods



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Developing Relationship, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Moving In Together, Slice of Life, Undressing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-06
Updated: 2013-08-13
Packaged: 2017-12-22 15:24:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/914836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robin_hoods/pseuds/robin_hoods
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alys worms her way into Jon's house, Jon's bed, and Jon's heart. (And he doesn't really mind.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Jon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [leapylion3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/leapylion3/gifts).



> A bit late, sorry about that. Happy birthday, sweetheart! I hope you like it. :)

“Hi, I saw you were looking for a roommate?” Jon opens the door to a bright-eyed, smiling girl, clad in too many layers of clothing with a silly hat on top of her dark hair. “I saw your ad in the main hall, and I know you requested only guys apply, but... I really need a place to stay, and it doesn't hurt to try, right?” She shrugs and leans against the doorframe, as if she's been waiting here all day for him.

Jon looks down at her feet. “You came prepared,” he says, unsure whether to be surprised or exasperated.

“What?” She looks down as well, to the sports bag at her feet. On top of that there's the plastic bag in her arms, and her backpack. “Oh, yeah. When I said I needed a place to stay, I really meant it. I mean, I guess I could always sleep on a bench at the park...” She trails of.

“What? No!” Jon says quickly, surprised by how easily she has him convinced, “Why would you– You don't have to sleep on a bench tonight.”

She smiles brightly at him and says, “Awesome,” drags her bags inside with her and takes her first look inside the flat. “This is a nice place you have.” It's simple, but Jon likes it that way, and Sam didn't mind either.

“Thanks,” he says, “uh. My name's Jon, by the way.”

“Jon Snow,” she says with a mischievous smile, “I know. I've heard of you – but so have all other girls on campus.”

“...they have?”

“Yep,” she says, dropping her backpack on the floor as well. “I'm Alys, by the way. Alys Karstark.” They shake hands and she grins up at him, her eyes twinkling, and he wonders what she knows that he doesn't.

While Alys makes herself at home in his flat, taking off her shoes and her jacket, Jon considers if he should write Sam for advice about girls who just move in with you. He feels as if there are words on the tip of his tongue that he should say, he just can't remember what they are – but than, he never can when he really needs to. He glances at Alys, who is rummaging through her bag on the kitchen table.

On the other hand, writing Sam might not be such a good idea. He thinks Sam would be just as helpless as Jon is right now, lost for words, like Sam was when he first met Gilly.

“I'll make you dinner,” she tells him after putting her bag away.

Jon stares at his plate. He's not sure how she managed to _burn_ the spaghetti, but she has and the tomato sauce probably has no tomatoes in it, just liberal amounts of ketchup.

“That was good,” she states after they've finished, and Jon nods along. He can barely boast of his own cooking skills, and she offered, so he thinks it's not wise to complain.

“If you don't mind, I'm gonna crash. It's been a long day.” Her eyebrows are raised and he slowly nods, gathering the plates and cutlery together by himself while she sits down on the couch, and there's a background noise in the flat that he has missed, the presence and warmth of another human being. One pair of lungs keeps you alive, but two pairs, that's a symphony.

While she sleeps the night away on the couch, Jon does the dishes with all the lights turned off, save for the overhead light above the sink. When he looks over his shoulder, he can see Alys' feet sticking out just above the armrest, crossed at the ankles. He leaves the plates to dry and turns the light off, dipping the room into darkness. He'll ask her tomorrow what she wants to do. He's not sure why she thought she had to sleep on a bench if she couldn't stay here, but they would figure something out.

But in the morning, she's gone. There's a note on the table, along with a tenner. “Sorry about the inconvenience,” it says, “thanks for having me.” Jon sits down on the couch with a sigh and wonders when his life got so boring that a girl could turn it upside down.

He doesn't expect to run into Alys Karstark again, expecting her sleepover at his flat to be a one-time thing, but there she is, two day later. She sits in front of the medical faculty, eating a sandwich with her sports bag lodged between her feet. “Hi,” Jon says, and she looks up, a piece of garden cress sticking out of the corner of her mouth that she expertly licks away.

“Jon Snow,” she says, “what a surprise!”

“I have class here,” Jon says, and frowns. “You didn't sleep on this bench, did you?” She blushes and shakes her head quickly, almost too quickly.

“I stayed with a friend,” she explains, although it doesn't quite explain the bedhead or the toothbrush sticking out of her pocket.

“Look,” Jon says, “I have a lecture on pathology in... five minutes, but if you're here when I come back, you could stay over, I guess.”

“Are you picking me up, Jon Snow?” Alys grins at him, and he feels a blush creeping up his neck.

“No!” he says. “No, I just. You don't have to brush your teeth in one of the bathrooms in the building, you could do that at my place.”

She narrows her eyes, and sighs after a moment, putting her elbows on her knees, her head in her hands. “You pity me, don't you?”

“I... well, I guess I know what it's like.”

“To be homeless?”

“To be unwanted.”

They stay quiet for several more minutes until Jon suddenly jumps up and says, “Gotta go, lecture, sorry!”

True to his word, two and a half hours later he's sitting on the bench, waiting for her. “I wasn't sure if you were going to show up,” she admits, shuffling her feet around.

“Why wouldn't I?” he asks and stands up. “I said I would, didn't I?”

“People say things all the time. That doesn't mean they'll do what they say.”

“I don't make promises I can't keep,” Jon says. “Are you coming?”


	2. Alys

From that point, Alys stays at Jon's place. She makes terrible dinners, cracks jokes, and accidentally ruins his shower curtain when he's not home. (“I'll buy you a new one,” she promises.)

It all changes a week later. Grenn comes over, one of Jon's friends at the brotherhood they informally call the Night's Watch, and he's the one that mentions, “Weren't you looking for a roommate, Snow?”

Alys and Jon are sitting next to each other on the sofa, each in their own corner, and Grenn looks at Jon expectantly. “Or are you two...?”

“No,” Jon says at the same time Alys says, “Yes.” They look at each other in confusion.

“It's just, I know a guy looking for a place, temporarily. Should I give him your address?”

The guy's name is Pyp. He's nice enough, has apparently just joined the Night's Watch, and when she hears them laughing together she thinks they must share a sense of humour.

They're doing the dishes later when Alys asks, “Do I live here, or is this just temporary? I can pay you rent, you know.”

“Can you?” he asks.

She sighs. “No... Not now. But I will once I get a job.” And she knows he's doing her a favour, a big favour, one she's not sure if she'll ever be able to repay. Not everyone is insane enough to take in a virtual stranger and look after their well-being, after all, but Jon... he's something else entirely.

Pyp comes over twice more, brings home-made lasagna (although he confides in Alys that his mother made it, and that she probably shouldn't let him anywhere near the stove). They sign the agreement the third night, and than he moves into the spare room. Alys is still sleeping on the couch.

They throw a housewarming party later that week (for Pyp, Jon has lived in his flat for two years, and he really doesn't need any more plates or cups or egg timers). Alys is drinking a beer and sits on the couch, watching Jon attempt to make smalltalk with a guy everyone calls Dolorous Edd, but she's pretty sure that's not his real name. (Just like Snow isn't Jon's last name, but everyone calls him that anyway.) They're mostly guys from the Night's Watch, who know each from here and there, this or that party, but Alys doesn't really know any of them.

She's sure it shows on her face, because Jon makes his way over to her after putting his bottle on the kitchen table. “How're you holding up,” he asks as he sits down.

“Not,” she says, and frowns. She doesn't mean to be this negative, it's supposed to be a nice evening after all, but she can't really help herself.

“Not how?” he asks, and she fiddles with the bottle in her lap. He looks too concerned, and she doesn't want to look into his eyes and have that expression directed at her.

“Everything,” she says. “My father died,” she adds after a pause, the thought only just fleeting into her mind. One of her brothers had called her this afternoon, to tell her.

“Sorry to hear that.”

“It's fine. I didn't like him much, anyway.”

“My father recently passed as well,” Jon says and she watches him closely, the downturning of his mouth, his furrowing eyebrows. It's the first time she sees him exposed like this, emotions flickering across his face.

“You miss him, don't you?” she says, and he looks up again.

“Too much, probably.”

Someone calls Jon from the other side of the room, and Grenn presses another beer into Alys' hand after she's emptied her bottle. There really is nothing quite as disgusting as warm beer. At the end of the evening, she is uncertain about how much she drank, but it's probably too much. The room swims a little when she gets up.

One by one, the guests trickle out, clapping Pyp on the shoulder and congratulating him. It's just after two am, and Pyp disappears into his bedroom – it is his, now, despite there only being a mattress on the floor while an upturned box tries to pass for nightstand.

Alys swallows. It's just Jon and her sitting at the kitchen table now, marveling at the quiet that has suddenly appeared in the flat. His cheeks are flushed and his hands tremble, but his voice doesn't waver when he asks, “Is that why you're here? Because of your family?”

She purses her lips, and tries to think of a good answer to that. “I might be,” she settles on. “Up until a few months ago, I lived at home, was going to class regularly... Life just got in the way. Sometimes... sometimes I think they wanted me to be someone I couldn't be, you know? Like, you're somehow supposed to know who you're meant to be, but I don't know. You can't really know that, can you?”

“I always thought I was meant to be a doctor,” Jon says thoughtfully, his chin resting on his hand. “But that's what my dad wanted me to be. And it's fine. I'm happy here. But you're not.”

“No,” she says and groans softly. “Sometimes I wish they would forget that I exist, just so I can go my own way. I swear, the moment I get a job somewhere, one of my brothers will pop up and try to drag me home. As if I can't do whatever my dad expected them to do. Not that he had high expectations of me. It was always Harry this, or Eddy that.”

“Many siblings, huh?” he says, and smiles. “I know the feeling.”

“Let's just... stop talking about family, okay? It's a bit depressing,” Alys says, and Jon stands up from the table. “Do you need any help with that?”

“What? Oh, no. It's fine.” She watches him disappear into the kitchen with some things the guests left behind and tries to resist biting down on her nails. She doesn't need another bad habit.

“I'm way too drunk for this,” she says when he comes back into the room.

He blinks. “For what?”

“Deep, philosophical conversations about dead fathers. Those are a turn off, anyway.”

He pauses halfway through taking her bottle from her, his mouth comically halfway open so she can count all of his teeth. “I've been told I suffer terribly from foot in mouth disease,” she says and hands the bottle over, grinning at his expression.

“Oh,” he says, and wordlessly takes it from her. With her eyes she follows him into the kitchen, smiling softly. And then she realises.

Jon is sweet, but he's probably never going to find out by himself. Not unless she makes the first move, anyway. So she makes her decision and stands up, trailing into the kitchen.

He's stacking up a few crates and wipes his brow, and she's not sure if it's the alcohol or something she's always wanted to do (although she doesn't pretend she hasn't watched him, he's too attractive not to keep an eye on), but when she touches his shoulder and he turns around her mouth is on his. Careful and soft, at first, but than she bites his lower lip and he opens his mouth, and he must have had some practice because no first timer kisses like this.

Within no time he has her picked up, his hands curled around her legs, her arms around his neck. They bump into the doorframe on the way out, but she just holds on tighter.

“Are you sure?” he asks when they reach his bedroom.

“I only kiss men I want to kiss, Jon Snow,” she tells him and kisses the side of his mouth, a hint of stubble caressing her lips.

He sets her down on his bed and makes to stand up, but she hooks a foot behind his knee and pulls him straight down on top of her, and she laughs as the air leaves her body. He grins against the side of her neck, and she runs her hands down his back, and appreciatively pats his arse. Than she makes quick work of his belt, and pulls his jeans down.

He's slowly nuzzlingly down her chest, unbuttoning her blouse, kissing her exposed stomach. From the corner of her eye, she can see his jeans dropping onto the floor, his arousal pressing against her leg. Before she can do anything about it, however, he's dipping his tongue inside her belly button and involuntarily she arches up her hips, while he licks and sucks his back up, one of his hands reaching behind her to unclasp her bra.

She snorts into his hair when his single-handed approach doesn't work, and sits up to help him out, and soon enough her blouse and bra are on the floor and his hands are on her breasts, tentatively touching a nipple.

She pulls his shirt over his head and raises her eyebrows, crawls back onto the bed until she's resting against the pillows. From where he sits at the edge, he watches her slowly unbutton her own pants, pushing them over her hips and further down, until he grabs her pant leg and undresses her until he's hovering above her face, their noses barely touching, his hair hanging slightly into his eyes. She thinks, I could get used to this. His eyes are soft and grey and Alys bumps their noses together, closes her eyes and breathes with the touch of his hands on her hips and the smell of his hair in her nose.


	3. Sam

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the lateness. This is basically the chapter with cavity-inducing fluff. Thank you for reading!

It's been six months since Sam last set foot in the flat he used to share with Jon Snow, but it still feels like yesterday that he opened that door and stepped inside for the first time. It still smells the same, anyhow, like someone recently repainted the walls... But one look at the empty paint buckets on the floor in the hall points that that is, in fact, true.

When he had left for his semester abroad, he and Jon had agreed Jon would find another roommate for the time being. The months had passed by surprisingly quickly; he could hardly believe he was back already. Jon had kept him updated while he was in Leuven; had told him about Pyp, his new roommate that often sang in the shower when he thought no one could hear him. What he'd told him the most about, though, was this strange girl who'd moved into the flat when they hadn't even known each others names.

He steps into the hall and closes the door behind him, wincing at the noise it makes when it shuts. Someone is humming in the kitchen, the smell of breakfast drifting into his nose. He walks around the corner, and he thinks it must be her, standing at the stove, poking at something in a frying with a plastic spatula. She's only wearing what Sam presumes is one of Jon's t-shirts, and he diverts his eyes to the ceiling and clears his throat.

She looks over her shoulder, completely unfazed. “Hiya,” she says, waving around the spatula in her right hand. Something splashes on the kitchen cabinets, but she doesn't seem to notice. “You must be Sam. Jon told me you were coming. I'm Alys.”

Sam nods. “You're Jon's girlfriend?”

“I prefer partner in crime,” she says with a wink.

“Okay,” Sam says, a little confused.

“Jon's just gone to pick up some milk; he'll be back soon. He told me about you a lot.”

“He did?” Sam asks. “He didn't... I mean, he did mention you, too. Frequently, actually.”

She smiles brightly. “I hope it was as often as he mentioned you. If I weren't sleeping with him, I'd swear you two were married.” Sam feels a blush creeping up his collar and is not quite sure where to look.

Jon walks into the kitchen just as Alys tells Sam to please sit down, would he like some breakfast maybe? and she smiles at him. “They hadn't run out of milk yet?” she teases.

“No, they hadn't,” he says, and only then seems to notice Sam standing next to the kitchen table. “Sam! I hadn't expected you this soon. How are you?”

“Um, good,” Sam says. “I went to see Gilly earlier, straight out of the airport, actually.” Jon nods. “She's doing well. I thought she...” he blushes when he thinks about it. “I thought she'd forgotten about me, you know? But she hadn't. Almost as if I hadn't gone away at all. I should've known, because we kept in touch, but...”

“Well, I did tell you she would wait for you,” Jon says with an amused smile.

“You did,” Sam says, and takes a shaky breath. Jon grins and swoops him in a one-armed hug, the other occupied by the milk.

“It's good to see you,” Jon says. “You were missed.” Sam beams, and promptly blushes. “You've already met Alys, I see?”

“Yeah,” Sam says, looking back at her. “Is she the one who...?” It's Jon's turn to blush now.

“The one who what?” Alys asks, putting her hands on her hips. “Have you been hiding things from me again? You should've told me that time you had food poisoning – and don't look at me like that, I know it was the lasagna. Is there something I should know, or what?” She doesn't sound angry, Sam thinks, just exasparated. They must have had this conversation a bunch of times before.

“Um,” Jon says, and Sam feels as awkward as Jon look right now. “No?” he says.

“You better fess up, Jon Snow,” she threatens. “I have a spatula, and I am not afraid to use it.” She points it at his face, and Jon visibly pales -- Sam really doesn't want to know exactly how she was planning to use it.

“Okay,” he says, sighing, “fine. I wanted it to be a surprise, but...” He gestures to Sam. “I knew Sam was coming back, and that maybe he would want to move back in, seeing as our spare room is vacant again. But I also knew that that would mean the flat would get very crowded – you've met Gilly, right?” Alys nods. “So, I talked to Sam about it, and I thought... maybe we could find another place, together?” She stares at him. “You know, like moving in together?” he tries, again.

“You dolt, what do you think I've been doing here these last few months?”

“We'll make it official,” Jon says. “Well, unless you want to live in a flat with four people, and a kid, of course.”

“I don't see why not,” Alys says after a pause, and they all stare at each other. “I like noise, okay? And you barely carry a conversation, Jon. I desperately need some other people around here to talk to."

Soon after, Sam ends up calling Gilly while Jon and Alys breathe down his neck.

“Sam,” she happily says, “I didn't expect you to call this soon. Is something wrong?”

“No,” he says, “no, nothing's wrong. Um. I just, wanted to ask you something. If that's okay with you?”

“Why wouldn't it be? Oh, sorry, hold on. The little monster is crying again, be right back.” He hears her shoes echoing against the hardwood floor of her tiny one-bedroom flat, cooing to the baby in the crib, whom they've dubbed the monster for reasons Sam prefers not to go into right now. When he hears her softly talking to her child on the other end of the line, his heart swells. He's been hesitant about it, but... he thinks he likes her. Loves her. They're an odd couple, the two of them, but he likes it that way.

Several minutes later, she focuses her attention back to the phone. “What did you want to ask?”

“Um,” Sam says. “I was wondering if... if you'd want to...”

“If I wanted to what, Sam?” she sounds confused. “We are still going for dinner tomorrow, right?”

“Yes!” Sam says, and abruptly feels like an idiot. “But I wanted to know if...” he breathes in deeply through his nose, “if youwantedtomove inwithme?”

“...really?” she asks, after a pause. Of course she'd know what he was asking, that's just like her, being able to decipher his nervous babbling.

“Really,” he says, releasing the breath he did not realise he had been holding. Next to him, he sees Alys and Jon high five each other. Could they have set all of this up? With their knowing smiles, he thinks they might have. He doesn't think he minds, though. Not when he'll get to see Gilly every day, see her smile and hear her laugh.

“I would love to, Sam,” she says, and he thinks he couldn't be happier.

“Thank you,” he tells his friends after Gilly has hung up, her attention diverted back to monster.

“No,” Alys says, “ _thank you_. If it weren't for you, I never would've met Jon.” She pokes her boyfriend between the ribs. “And to be honest, I have no idea how he managed without me.”

“Hey,” Jon protests, “I was doing just fine on my own.”

“But that's probably just because you shared a flat with our dear Sam here,” she says. Jon sighs, and Sam blushes. “Come on, let's have some breakfast. We have the rest of the day, no, of our _lives_ ahead of us. And you can't take on the world on an empty stomach.”

She directs both of them towards the kitchen table, and when she thinks Sam is not looking, steals a kiss from Jon. Sam smiles. Things might have changed while he was gone, but it's good to be back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who wonder, Leuven is a city in Belgium with its own university. :)


End file.
